During the course of the discussion, one of my fellow panelists suggested that when first implementing Scrum to tackle high value - high risk areas first. This actually is in line with traditional Agile thinking where it is preferable to fail early rather than fail late. Craig Larman, among others, have written in regards to this and I had supported this Agile line (and in many ways, I still support this line of thought … in theory).

However, in the course of this discussion I did disagree with my fellow panelist. The key here is the context of this point is when first implementing Agile/Scrum. As a consultant, I have seen when first introducing something new to an organization, many times there is very little, if any, room for failure. In these cases, my recommendation is to identify high value - low risk targets and address those first. By creating high value success early, this allows you to build creditability collateral.

For a team (and organization) that is just learning a new process like Scrum, there can be confusion, nervous, and potentially resistance. To ask a newly formed team or a team new to Scrum to implement and deliver on high value and high risk immediately compounds their unease and even further increases the risk. If facing a high value – low risk target, the value can be just as great with a high probability of success, thus allowing the team to create a pattern of success that can help settle some of their initial fears and nerves.

Once this credibility collateral has been established and the team is performing at a high level, then as quickly as possible, shift to addressing high value – high risk work. Hopefully at this point when the team does fail early, there will be enough credibility collateral built, along with organizational understanding of the process, to see these failings not as failings per se, but rather as a step in the process of iteratively delivering a solution.

Welcome to the new (and hopefully improved) version of my blog, One More Agile Blog (now in version 2.0).

There are really two key changes. The first is my blog URL is now http://www.onemoreagileblog.com/. The second change is that I have changed the look of the site (which really just involved me changing the blog template).

Why the URL change? To make a long story short, back in July I found out that my email provider, for some unknown reason, placed my BlogSpot blog URL on their URL blacklist. This meant that any email coming into Excella’s email system with my blog URL in the body was automatically being blocked with us receiving no notification of this happening and being unable to retrieve these blocked emails. This was extremely unfortunate since I have my blog URL in my email signature, so this would have affected anyone replying to one of my emails. I have lost and continue losing emails without knowing how many I have lost and who has been sending me emails.

If you’ve emailed me in the past month or two, there’s a strong chance that I did not get the email. Please contact me at either my richard.cheng@excella.com (just make sure to not include my old blog URL) or richard.k.cheng@verizon.net (which does not have this issue).

With all that said, welcome to the new site. More entries coming soon and this time I’ll strive to not have any month+ gaps in updates.

· Developing processes for non-technology based teams and organizations

As a management consultant, Richard has coached and mentored clients on the adoption and implementation of Agile and Scrum. Richard also leads Excella’s Agile Center of Excellence. Currently, Richard is working to bring Agile to the Federal government and is collaborating with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on Agile programs.

A graduate of Virginia Tech, Richard has authored several publications on project management, presented at Agile and PMI sponsored industry events, and is a member of Mensa. Richard is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), a Certified Scrum Master (CSM), and a Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP). Richard is an active member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), Scrum Alliance, and Agile Alliance.